I phoned the church and was able to put the spices on a table with a sign saying "FREE" for anyone who wants to pick them up.

I walked to a meeting of stitchers today. I was able to work on my hardanger bellpull, and my fifth prayer shawl. A lady there offered to help me figure out how to sew quilt blocks where all the corners meet in the middle (think lots of skinny triangles/diamond shapes). She also spent time evening up the edge of my silk shibori scarf so I can hand hem it.

Just so you know what I'm talking about, here are the pictures...



If you look at the closeup, you can see the actual marks left by the rusty nuts and bolts used to make the pattern in this fabric.



It is hand dyed...started out off white. It is soaked in a mordant, then wrapped around rusty stuff, spotted randomly with natural dyes, and then left to process for awhile in steam. The end result is this fabric.

Here's the prayer shawl...it needs to be 5' long. I've got a ways to go!



Here's the hardanger bellpull. It too, has a ways to go!



On a more frugal note...

I had perogies for lunch...with leftover onions I fried up in butter for overtop...and some fat free sour cream.  Don't know why I bother with fat free sour cream when I cook the onions in butter!  But the onions taste soooo much better in butter.

Breakfast was homemade blueberry muffins, almond butter and raspberry jam.

Snack was some almonds baked in soy sauce.  Nice and salty...and crunchy.

Supper is fish tonight.  Not sure if it will be salmon burgers or scallops I bought on sale last week.

Entertainment has been affordable this week.  Paul and I have been watching library and home DVDs, as per usual.  We've also taken to playing card games in the evening, and sometimes other games as well.  I'm also reading a bunch of books that have been loaned to me or borrowed from the library. 

The library did have a book sale this week.  I was there and picked up four books for $3.50.  Gotta love it when they're that cheap!  They were good basic books too.  One was on the DASH diet for hypertension.  Our family needs to be on that diet, and this is much cheaper than printing it off the Internet.  The basics of the diet are available for free, but the cost of ink and paper has got to be over $1....it's fairly long.

My friends and I continue to share things amongst ourselves.  One lady is slowly cleaning out her freezers in preparation for the upcoming gardening season.  I am the beneficiary of a lot of fruit, vegetables and baked goods.  In turn I give her first crack at things I am getting rid of...like those spices.  I also save ice-cream buckets for her to package fruit in for sale. 

I had loaned some of Mom's Bible videos to a special needs girl who attends our church.  She loved them and returned them, asking for more.

I've spent some time sorting through my fabric stash.  I have one bag ready to leave the house.  I want to spend time doing more sorting.  I figure the more I get rid of, the less I have to store or sew up.  Meaning more space and less money for storage containers.

I had to return "Getting Things Done" to the library.  Other people put holds on it!  But I'm kind of at a point with my filing cabinet project anyway.  It wouldn't hurt to finish a few projects and do some serious filing of information.

I went through some stitchwork I'd like to have framed and have put aside three pieces to do.  Two are for other people...things I've promised.  Then I have several pieces for myself.  I am going to speak with Paul about doing a few at a time.  I want to see how much I can do myself first.  I think some of them can be easily laced and inserted into frames.

I guess that's the extent of my Frugal Friday.  Most everything was reported as it happened this week.  Hope everyone is having a good time!  I'm off to sort through Mom's photos...